Brad Paisley Gave His Wife a ‘Hilarious and So Necessary’ Christmas Gift Before Her Vocal Cord Surgery

If there’s one thing Brad Paisley can relate to it’s the mortal fear a performer has when their voice just won’t cooperate after they’ve gone too hard. That’s why when his wife, actress Kimberly Williams-Paisley, felt her voice failing at her annual Alzheimer’s Association event in 2022, his first thought was “man, she’s overdone it.’ Because I only had my own experience to deal with,” the singer told People magazine in a cover story.

“I remember thinking, ‘You are going to be fine. Give a few days and it’ll come back,'” he recalled telling the Father of the Bride star, who said she first noticed her voice pitching higher more than five years ago. Over the next two years, Paisley readily admitted that he “stepped in it so much” during the time when his wife could barely speak above a whisper.

Paisley leaned into what he knew, or thought he knew, asking Kimberly to project, clear her throat and counseling her to, “‘learn to power through it.” Looking back, though, he’s realized he was “so stupid and naive” to give such advice. As it turns out, a few months after that event, Kimberly was diagnosed with a partially paralyzed vocal cord and had to undergo surgery to correct it.

While his initial tough love tips were not super helpful, Paisley did come up with a fun, somewhat silly solution to Kimberly’s inability to be heard above a whisper, even in her own home. “It was really hard because she would yell upstairs, ‘Hey, boys, come downstairs, dinner’s ready,'” and they could never hear her,” Paisley said of their sons, Huck, 17, and Jasper, 15.

For Christmas, Paisley gave Kimberly a bright pink megaphone she could bust out when she needed to call the boys. “It was one of the kindest things Brad did for me — it was really hilarious and so necessary,” she said. “I started using it immediately. He is so good at keeping me laughing.”

She said the boys also tried to help out, always eager to step in to be a voice for her. She recalled being at events where, if they noticed that someone she wanted to talk to was walking away and she couldn’t call out, they would go fetch them for her. “They’re used to assisting me, which is really sweet,” she said.

In an accompanying video, Kimberly noted that “so much of our personality” is expressed in our voice, especially for an actor/public speaker like her, who uses her voice as part of her “value system.” So, when it wasn’t there, she wondered, “who am I?”

Though she has battled back since her surgery in August, Paisley said it was “heartbreaking” to watch his wife — who “lives to talk to to people” — struggle to be heard. “Seeing her fight to figure it out was amazing. There was never a moment where she was just going to give up. It was inspiring,” he said.

Watch the People magazine cover story interview below.